Report on Review and Evaluation of Knowledge
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Large forest fire risk assessment and fuel management: operational tools and integrated approach Edited by Míriam Piqué and José Ramón González‐Olabarria Contributors: Míriam Piqué, José Ramón González‐Olabarria, Teresa Valor, Andrea Duane, Mario Beltrán, Ángela Blázquez, Lluís Brotons (Forest Science Centre of Catalonia, CTFC) Thomas E. L. Smith (King’s College London, KCL) December 2015 Large forest fire risk assessment and fuel management: operational tools and integrated approach List of Authors Míriam Piqué, José Ramón González‐Olabarria, Teresa Valor, Andrea Duane, Mario Beltrán, Ángela Blázquez, Lluís Brotons (Forest Science Centre of Catalonia, CTFC) Thomas E. L. Smith (King’s College London, KCL) Acknowledges Juan Camaño, Dani Garcia, Jordi Pagès (Pau Costa Foundation) Edgar Nebot, Asier Larrañaga (General Directorate of Fire Prevention and Extinction, and Rescue, Government of Catalonia (UT‐GRAF, DGPEIS) Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) December 2015 Content 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 2. HAZARD/RISK ASSESSMENT TOOLS ........................................................................................ 2 2.1. Fire ignition models ......................................................................................................... 2 2.1.1. Modeling changes in fuel flammability: Fire Danger Rating Systems ...................... 2 2.1.2. Fire ignition modeling .............................................................................................. 5 2.1.3. Key messages ........................................................................................................... 8 2.1.4. Integrated approach ................................................................................................. 8 2.2. Fire behaviour and fire spread models ........................................................................... 9 2.2.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 9 2.2.2. Fire behaviour models ............................................................................................ 10 2.2.3. Spatial explicit fire spread models ......................................................................... 11 2.2.4. Potential uses and requirements of fire simulation models .................................. 16 2.2.5. Fire simulation modelling in Europe ...................................................................... 17 2.2.6. Key messages for practitioners in Europe .............................................................. 18 2.3. Crown fire hazard assessment ...................................................................................... 21 2.3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 21 2.3.2. Forest structure and fire behavior ......................................................................... 22 2.3.3. Review of the state of the art ................................................................................ 23 2.3.4. Application of tools for crown fire hazard assessment.......................................... 26 2.3.5. Key messages related to the tools for crown fire hazard assessment................... 28 3. FUEL MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR FIRE HAZARD REDUCTION .............................................. 29 3.1. Silvicultural treatments and management guidelines for fuel reduction ..................... 29 3.1.1. Introduction: forest management and fire behavior ............................................. 29 3.1.2. Review of the state of the art ................................................................................ 30 3.1.3. Application of silvicultural treatments ................................................................... 34 3.1.4. Key messages ......................................................................................................... 37 3.1.5. Integrated approach ............................................................................................... 37 3.2. Prescribed burning ........................................................................................................ 38 3.2.1. State of the art ....................................................................................................... 39 3.2.2. Use of tools for PB: from strategic to tactic‐operational point of view ................. 43 3.2.3 Key messages .......................................................................................................... 44 3.2.4. Integrated approach ............................................................................................... 45 4. INTEGRATED APPROACH FOR FIRE RISK ASSESSMENT AND FUEL MANAGEMENT: USE OF TOOLS ....................................................................................................................................... 45 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 48 ANNEX 1 ................................................................................................................................... 72 1. INTRODUCTION There are a number of tools and methods available to obtain estimates on future fire hazard, fire risk, fire ignition probability and fire behavior. When talking about fire hazard, it usually refers to the fuel characteristics or fire related properties of the fuels at one point in time (Keane et al. 2010). While when talking about fire risk, it usually considers the probability that a fire might occur in a certain place and period of time, and also its potential degree of damage, especially if we consider an economic approach, as when planning forest management (Gadow 2000). Therefore, to assess fire risk we have to consider the ignition probability, and the potential that an occurring ignition will translate into a significant fire event (Keane et al. 2010). Such analysis of fire risk will require from the knowledge of the fire ignition sources and subjacent factors, the behavior of fire depending on existing fuels, their distribution, and other surrounding factors (weather, topography, fire extinction resources, etc.). Regarding to the effect of climate change on the risk of fire, it can be mention that it will increase the level of uncertainty to any future predictions about the risk of fire. One way to deal with the uncertainty arisen by climate change can be to apply a large set of possible climatic scenarios and undertake a sensibility analysis with the obtained results. The assessment of fire occurrence and its potential impact, can be implemented following various and diverse approaches. It can be said that no single approach can tackle effectively the complexity of factors driving fire occurrence and fire behavior (socio‐economic, climatic, fuel related, or even accounting for the impact of extinction measures), or even represent the whole set of preventive measures for reducing fire occurrence, spread and impact. The main goal of this review is to provide a compressive overview of the existing tools for assessing fire hazard/risk, as well as to describe their real or potential usefulness as information sources to support decision making processes. Furthermore, the review will describe the existing and potential links between the different tools, providing an integrated view of the processes behind its components and outputs as well and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their applications. The current tools that are being assessed are Ignition Models, Fire Danger Rating Systems (FDRSs), Fire Models, Crown Fire Hazard Vulnerability, Silvicultural Management and Prescribed Burning. All these tools can be used in different steps of the decision making process. Accordingly, we have considered different criteria to analyze the decision context in which the tools are used: scale of application (stand, landscape or regional/global), level of planning (operative, tactical or strategic) and strategy used (passive or active). Throughout this review the classification of each tool into a decision making step will be discussed. 1 2. HAZARD/RISK ASSESSMENT TOOLS 2.1. Fire ignition models 2.1.1. Modeling changes in fuel flammability: Fire Danger Rating Systems Fire Danger Rating Systems (FDRSs) have a primary objective of assessing fuel and weather conditions, and provide estimates about fuel flammability and the potential fire behavior for every allocation over areas under those conditions. Their provide an idea about the relative seriousness or threat that fire imposes according to the fuel and weather conditions, often as a day by day measure reported as fire danger maps, relate the fire potential behavior to the effort required to extinguish or contain those fire using different suppression efforts. Some of the most popular systems or models used for this purpose are the Keetch‐Byram Drought Index (KBDI; Keetch and Byram 1968), the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating / Fire Weather Index (FWI) System (Turner and Lawson 1978; Stocks et al., 1989), the United States National Fire Danger Rating System (NDFRS) (Deeming et al.,1972; Cohen and Deeming; 1982 ) and the Australian Forest Fire Danger Rating / McArthur index (McArthur FFDI) (McArthur 1967; Noble et al., 1980; Luke and McArthur 1986). These systems often work on coarse resolution scales, for example 12 km in the case